DIQ’s – IN SEASON!!! By Laura Ryan

The “hunt” is on!

March 31 has come and gone. If you submitted your DIQ card in March & were, or soon will be, “accepted by the company” then April has found you to be a new DIQ with dreams of crossing stage at Seminar and aspirations of being the coveted Independent Sales Director. Perhaps you are going for it ALL by getting in the running for the car too! Makes sense - to work smarter and more efficiently by killing two birds with one stone. It can get a bit tricky though so just remember as a DIQ – your recruits recruits count towards your production; as a person in car production – ONLY YOUR PERSONAL recruits count toward that production.

As a DIQ, you are on the top of your director’s list. In fact, you may have been selected as one of your director’s “Six Chicks” and feel very special. I know I did. I wore my $3 DIQ Rhinestone pin everywhere. I was on top of the world at that time, so we know where you are emotionally. (The “Six Chicks” thing is a motivational tactic from a professional training company – not the heart of your director).

Your director is trained to have DIQ’s constantly in her unit. That’s the secret: “Always have a DIQ behind you or in your unit”. Having those DIQ’s make unit production.

Do the math – 4 DIQ’s doing the minimum of $4,000 each = $16,000 which is Cadillac Production. Hmmm. Even one DIQ is enough to sustain a unit if she is producing the minimum DIQ requirement.

If she fails DIQ, she has succeeded in building her directors unit and they know this and unfortunately, sometimes, count on it.

Well, read on so that like many of us, you will not become the APRIL FOOL!

This site is full of women who’ve been there, done that as a DIQ, either after several tries, or succeeding the first time. We all know hindsight is 20/20, so the advice posted in this article is for your benefit. As with anything we read, we can take it or leave it. You might even think that all we want to do is “steal your dream” – (my original screen name on the net when posting about MK was “Dreamtaker”); but, that’s just not so. All we hope to accomplish is for you to read and consider what we say – as with anything in life, YOU DECIDE what you want to do, however, you have an additional benefit because of this site, a site that was not there for the rest of us when we could have made better decisions because of what is being said here.

This is not a “bash Mary Kay” site. It’s more a “we know the truth about what really goes on by the sales force and share it site.” As many of you know, it takes a lot of courage to finally speak up and out.

Wise people learn from the mistakes of others and humble people share their mistakes to help others learn from them. That combination is a win-win situation for everyone.

Now that you are a DIQ:

DIQ is intense. Most often, DIQ’s find themselves, (like I did), recruiting most of the new unit yourself. Hopefully, your recruits will help you during this very stressful time (that seems to make it easier).

DIQ’s have a minimum monthly quota of $4,000 each month of their qualification period (see www.marykayintouch.com for a complete set of rules for DIQ).

In order to “keep” in the running, some of us found certain temptations too strong and ultimately submitted to things we are now ashamed of. Heed to our warnings in case you find yourself heading in the wrong direction.

Some of those things include:

Finding your self falling short of the required monthly production at the end of the month.

Finding your self putting more than the $4,000 in to “finish”.

Finding, during or at the end of DIQ, you have quite a few “inactive” team members signed up. Some of which are reluctant to put in that initial inventory order – so you are contemplating “activating” them yourself (in secret, of course).

Not only will you be (or should be) emotionally damaged from such activity, you’ll open up yourself to future deceptions such as:

Questions & Hindsight 20/20 from those who have been there, done that follow:

Do you believe the “hard part will be over” once you become a director?
Hindsight 20/20 – It won’t. You must ALWAYS be in DIQ after you become a director. Everyone knows that. Never believe that statement if you are told. That’s the nature of the business – (MLM) to bring in more and more recruits, oftentimes done only to keep your unit afloat since most consultants leave an MLM like Mary Kay within a year. (Ever see the incentives offered to those who stay in after a year? It’s because they KNOW most leave within that time period. Did anyone tell you that at recruitment? Bet not.)

Do you believe, considering all the recent increases in commissions/bonuses for recruiting, that you’ll be able to replace your income from your J.O.B. and quit? Better yet, work so your husband can quit his job because you love him and want to help out?

Hindsight 20/20 – Most likely, NOT. Do NOT QUIT YOUR J.O.B. (you can, of course, do what you want, but this is strong advice from those who have quit and regretted it) especially if you have benefits, retirement, health & unemployment insurance until you fully realize what this “opportunity is about”. Do your homework on MLM’s, read our site and ask yourself if you are willing to work nites and weekends day in and day out to do this business.

Thankfully, my director told me not to quit, so I share that wisdom here. There are a ton of expenses associated with directorship to include DIT training, after you debut, which will cost you a week of your time and travel/hotel expenses to Dallas (average about $1,000 for travelers). You MUST buy your suit which can cost upwards of $400. And this is only the beginning and you’ve already spent $1400 not counting going to Seminar, add another $800-$1000.

If you liked getting prizes from your director, ponder being THE director who will have to buy those prizes now. They are inexpensive as far as actual cost goes; but VERY EXPENSIVE when you figure what it costs you to earn them. A $10 bee once cost me $600. It didn’t occur to me then how stupid this was. Sorry, that’s the only word that completely describes doing such things.

Do you believe, once you become a director, your team will be working for “YOU”?

Well, sometimes YES, most times, NO. When I debuted (and this information is common knowledge amongst directors in Mary Kay) I received some “training tapes” along with a nice Director Handbook, etc. As I was listening to the tape in my car, the lady stated……… “As we ALL KNOW, after your debut, 1/3 of your new unit is already gone, 1/3 is on their way out and only about a third of the remaining third will “work their business” (meaning place orders). This was a QUOTE from that tape. I will never forget those words because it came to pass for me too, those statistics described my unit exactly.

More importantly, I will never forget how deceived I felt when I heard those words AFTER I became a director – this, being common knowledge, yet no one had warned me to build on rock, not sand because of this commonality.

If your team is not working, it’s up to YOU and given the statistics for MLM’s (most leave w/in 1st year), you are ALWAYS a DIQ.

Do you think if you quit your J.O.B. to do MK full-time, that’ll help your chances of succeeding?

Not necessarily. It will free you up to spend even MORE time on your Mary Kay business in addition to nights and weekends. We have found that results don’t always match effort.

Do you think that once you become a director, you’ll always be a director?

Well, hopefully, your director has discussed all of this with you. BUT, we have found they don’t and that’s another reason why we exist.

You do not get your Director Agreement to sign until after you are “accepted by the Company” and your unit checks out as legitimate (they do check randomly). There is a Termination Clause (Section 10 of the Agreement) for directors.

You can access that section by clicking the TPS Discussion Board tab on the home page of the website and scroll down to the Director Agreement Section.

At the company’s discretion, if you fail to meet, AT ANY TIME DURING YOUR DIRECTORSHIP, the minimum production required for your unit (is that a quota?) for two consecutive months in a row, and have used your one time grace month, you will be terminated as a director and become a consultant once again.

Your unit will once again belong to your Senior director. So ladies, consider this and if you are in the running, make sure you are building a team who will sell and reorder to resupply product sold, not build to simply “work the numbers” frontloading inventories.

As a recruiter, if your recruit returns their product, you are charged back the commissions you earned on those orders. As a director, you can earn higher commissions/bonuses, so keep that in mind. Also the amount of the return comes off of your unit production.

Be careful out there ladies!

Since this is such a crucial time in the MK year, there will be a series of DIQ information and advice on this site . Hopefully we can enlighten women about the things we found out too late.